29 April 2026

Steenbergs Impact Report 2025

• carbon offsetting,
• Olaf Wood,
• B Corp,
• carbon costs

Steenbergs has achieved its key targets for carbon reduction for 2016-2025 and has set new targets to 2030 that address carbon generated by distribution of its products to customers.

Tough times at present. And it's going to get tougher.

Nevertheless, 2025 resulted in a small uplift in sales but a drop in profits, because costs have been driven upwards by increased regulations and wage costs. Steenbergs continues to reduce its environmental impact, having cut its water use, waste generation and electricity use over the last few years, but carbon costs from electricity were still impacted by one of our energy suppliers which reintroduced carbon intensive sources for electricity a couple of years back. We are carbon neutral, because we offset the carbon costs from energy, and are zero waste to landfill.

Since we began in 2003, Sophie and Axel have been committed to running a small business in herbs, spices, and flavours, with people and the planet at its core. Since the outset, we have been pioneers in organic and Fairtrade spices and have operated as a business where everyone is paid the same and everyone has hands-on involvement. Back in 2015 we set ourselves the target of getting our direct carbon costs down to zero by 2025. We’ve achieved that mission, so now we move to the next phase, being the elimination of Steenbergs’ carbon impact from transport whilst maintaining what we’ve already achieved.

In 2022, we became BCorp, adding this to our other ethical and environmental certifications and processes – organic, Fairtrade, SEDEX and the BS8555 environmental standard. Together with Axel and Sophie’s personal ethos, these standards, methods and protocols are helping to shape how we operate our business and develop a resilient base for Steenbergs to develop over the next 10+ years.

In 2025, sales increased by 4.5% to £1.3 million (2024: £1.2 million), but costs have remained difficult with staff costs, raw materials and packaging, and regulatory costs (for example EPR, import costs) that have continued to increase way above inflation whilst the costs of services are increasing even more rapidly. Energy and logistics costs remain key issues for us. It has proved difficult impossible to pass on these costs to our customers.

Disappointingly, we don’t feel that there is a positive attitude towards environmental issues currently with lip service being paid to the clear scientific evidence for climate change and a biodiversity crisis. Whereas there are lots of great bits of individual work and projects, continued emphasis on an oil-based society whilst ignoring environmental impacts does not bode well for social justice in the UK and around the world, and dropping bombs is not a solution for ordinary folk anywhere. We cannot see that the climate and biodiversity emergencies will be met at the global scale, but we’ll continue to do our bit at the local level.

BCORP SCORES

Steenbergs’ first certification against BCorp standards was in 2022. In 2025, we were audited and recertified. Our BCorp Scores are:

Our key aim for the period to 2021 – 2025 was to improve our Workers’ score, which was successfully completed. The target for the next certification is to achieve recertification against the new set of standards.

HOW WE DID IN 2025

ENVIRONMENTAL

CARBON

We recognise that there is a climate emergency caused by human activities. Our objective is to reduce our carbon emissions in line with climate science and a 1.5C target, and to achieve net-zero by 2030 by removing residual CO2e. The aim is to decouple our business from increasing carbon emissions and to provide our customers low carbon intensity products. This begins with being focused on plant products – everything is vegetarian and vegan.

To achieve this, we have calculated how to achieve this and set our first objective to reduce our direct carbon costs to zero by end 2025. We define ‘direct carbon costs’ as Scope 1, Scope 2, and controllable Scope 3 emissions (travel, sewerage, waste). We set our carbon targets to achieve a 100% reduction in core carbon costs of the business operations, using 2016 as the baseline:

In 2025, our scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions after carbon offsetting were 0 tonnes CO2e, and direct carbon costs were 0 tonnes CO2e in Scope 3. These are down from about 14 tonnes CO2e in 2016 and unchanged from 2024. One of our energy suppliers for one of our buildings embarrassed us in 2022 by switching from a zero-carbon mix to one that included coal and gas, so we have been having to offset residual carbon costs, with 401kg CO2e (2024: 888kg CO2e) from British Gas offset in 2025. We were locked in until end Q1 2026 but have now switched to Octopus Energy for all our electricity purchases, having been already with them for most of our energy.

On a more positive note, we have reduced our controllable CO2e (energy + water & sewerage + waste) before offsetting by -97% over the period 2017 – 2025, which we think is pretty good. Over the same period, we have been a net carbon sink of about -65 tonnes CO2e, i.e., we’ve theoretically captured at least that amount through our wood in Wales and via formal carbon offsetting with 2 tonnes CO2e purchased in 2025 from ForestCarbon, which invests in UK projects; in 2022 – 2024, we purchased carbon credits through ClimateCare. It’s really a bit more than that as we’ve excluded the 12,500 tonnes that the Woodland Creation Project will achieve through its lifecycle which have been sold.

However, to be clear, this does not meet the requirements of a net zero pathway because, for this, you must include all costs consequent on your business, including transport in and out, cooking and making cups of tea by the end user, and the costs of disposing of packaging and product. We’ve looked at the practicalities and costing of getting a full carbon costing for Steenbergs carried out, but the costs seem very expensive, plus we’ve not yet found anyone willing to engage with us on this, despite reaching out to a few service providers.

We’re probably just too small. So, we’ve adopted a different approach that we think would work for other small businesses. Essentially, it is a stepped method, whereby rather than tackling everything in one stressful, unmanageable go, we move in stages: from energy, to travel, to waste, to water, to transport; so from easily controlled impacts to less controllable impacts.

The key Scope 3 carbon impacts from our products are transport in and out and the carbon impact of cooking and making your cups of tea. These carbon costs are not genuinely controllable by us and the only way of reducing these costs by the 90% to hit net zero by 2050 is to literally stop folk cooking, making cups of tea and for us to stop trading, which seems a self-defeating strategy. So, the question is how can we reduce the carbon costs from transport, shipping, cooking, etc., without literally packing it in? We’re not sure that folk have understood the real consequences of setting these targets – it will need a lot of sacrifices by end-users and businesses to get there. We’ll leave the practical solutions to this to people who are much cleverer than us, but we don’t see how things can be made, moved around and sold without some impacts – people are physical beings living in a physical world and we cannot live in a fake, virtual space.

So, we’ve decided on a different tack and will try and address our impacts in a staged way. Having successfully eliminated our direct carbon costs, Steenbergs has set itself the target of reducing its carbon impact from transport to net-zero by 2030. This will result in a business with net-zero impact from its activities.

As we rely on transport to get our organic spices to our customers, we have a responsibility to help reduce the carbon footprint of distribution. The main way we keep our carbon intensity down is that we have no distribution vehicles and only use grouped deliveries through couriers and pallet networks, so carbon costs are shared across many deliveries, the distributors optimize their routing and empty vehicles are kept as close to nil as possible. Then, the operators that we use also invest in as many electric vehicles as they can and they genuinely are shifting their networks to electric transportation. For example, packaging sundries from Macfarlane Packaging come on a full electric artic, which we think is a damn cool thing.

So far, we have reduced the carbon costs of package deliveries as low as we can, by using the Royal Mail and DPD. Royal Mail has the lowest direct carbon footprint at 200 g CO2e per packet and DPD is net carbon zero per packet; both have electric vehicles within their fleet, often collecting packets from us in one of them. Alongside this, we’ve been slowly improving our palletised logistics partners on how best to reduce carbon emissions in the UK, but these do remain net carbon generators.

Our target for 2026 is to shift pallet deliveries to the best pallet network based on environmental credentials and to calculate the carbon cost of deliveries, so we can then offset residual net carbon.

WATER

Our objective is to minimize the use of water within the business, and we set ourselves the target of reducing water usage by 25% by end 2025. We’ve not achieved this because we’re struggling to get rainwater harvesting installed into 11 Hallikeld Close. This is proving a tough nut to crack.

Most of the reduction came from the installation of rainwater harvested water for the toilets in 6 Hallikeld Close in 2022, but it didn’t work for about 2 months during the winter, so water usage went up a bit between 2024 and 2025. Since 2016, however, water use was down -15% at 104,196 litres (2016: 123,151 litres).

We’re trying to progress with installing rainwater harvesting at 11 Hallikeld Close to get us towards our targets, but there’s always a delay, always something that’s stopping it from progressing. Our new target till 2030 is a -10% reduction in water use.

At the woods, we take water very, very seriously, because one of its key attributes is its ability to filter the water that flows across the land and to reduce flooding by holding back water in the soil and the trees. So, we have a monitoring program to check water quality and dipwells to monitor water movements through the land, particularly suitability for fenland restoration, and we’ve installed a water level monitoring equipment for one of the becks in July 2025 – an Aquaread Absolute LeveLine and Barometer kit; for the dipwells, we use a Solinst Level Logger and Barometer system.

Our target for 2026 continues to be to install rainwater harvesting in 11 Hallikeld Close. We’ll get there, we promise, but it’s difficult to stay patient.

WASTE

We recognize that one of the biggest impacts we have relates to the waste we generate here in our factories and the waste that our products create. Our objective is to reduce the waste here and to reduce the amount of plastic within our business. We apply the reuse – recycle – energy recovery hierarchy as the basis for decisions on waste.

Steenbergs’ annual waste was 5.9 tonnes in 2025, which was up 11% from 2024 and down -50% from 2016 (11.7 tonnes). 58% is recycled, 42% is waste-to-energy, and 0% to landfill. There has been a slight change in the mix because we sent 0.6 tonnes of food waste for recycling; this mostly relates to domestic food waste from staff and home, because North Yorkshire Council does not provide food waste recycling and won’t till 2043 – that’s a really long time in the future and we’re having to pay for it through the business waste scheme, which is an indictment on North Yorkshire County Council.

In terms of Steenbergs, we are zero waste to landfill and have been zero waste to landfill since 2010. All our internally generated cardboard, paper, glass and metal is recycled by Yorwaste at Harewood Whin. All non-recyclable waste (trade waste) is collected by Yorwaste and used as feedstock for energy at the Allerton Park Waste Recovery Plant, which supplies energy to about 40,000 homes. In addition, hair nets, plastic arm covers, plastic film and our employees’ crisp packets, etc. are recycled by Terracycle. In terms of plastic within Steenbergs, plastic sacks and blue drums that have been in contact with spices, etc., go through trade waste, but the clear drums for extracts are washed and then recycled.

In terms of our products and packaging, we use materials that have as little plastic in them as possible, use sustainable materials and include as much recycled materials as possible. We monitor these and seek to reduce the level of virgin materials as far as possible.

The core of our range is packed in glass with stainless steel lids. One of the targets for 2025 was to improve the recycled levels within the core packaging. We’ve shifted up the recycled content with lids now 58% (2024: 0%) and glass 65% (2024: 55%). The bottles for the extracts do not contain much recycled content, but they reuse some internal cullet; the lids for the extracts use 76% recycled aluminium (2024: 0%). Both the glass and lids can be reused, or they can be recycled in kerbside recycling.

Another of our targets for 2025 was to reinstate compostable packaging for mini bulk lines, because our previous supplier went into administration and the new owner stopped production of paper-based packaging. We managed to start with a new supplier whose range is paper based and certified as compostable.

We pack teas, stuffings and mulled spices products in film. Our core material is plastic-free Natureflex film that is plant-based and home compostable. However, we recognize that some of our retail customers, as well as the UK government, do not agree with us that this makes the most sense for the environment, so when requested we do pack some products in polyethylene or polypropylene film. Ultimately, we think we have made the correct choice, because using plastic supports the oil industry, which is the root cause of all our problems, and we are constantly having to remove plastic feed sacks and soft drinks bottles from our wood – it’s a lesson in why reducing plastic is not enough and we need to eliminate it, because it just doesn’t break down in the environment.

In terms of transit, we pack in corrugated cardboard boxes. The recycled element in these varies from 63 – 100% depending on the specific requirements for the box. We do not use plastic for protective packaging and use a variety of paper-based materials and reused cardboard to prevent breakages. Because we use paper rather than plastic, it does mean we get a few extra breakages in transit than we would like, but we prefer to keep plastic out of our packaging so far as possible.

Whereas we produce relatively little waste in our operations, we do generate packaging as a food processor, and this enters the waste and recycling streams. We disclose the packaging we generate under the Extended Packaging Responsibility Regulations because we generate a relatively high weight of potential packaging waste as we pack in glass, even though we’re classed a small business under the regulations. This has resulted in a 20% increase in packaging costs, only some of which we’ve managed to pass on – thanks UK Government, much appreciated.

In summary for 2025, we reduced the packaging generated by 7.6% to 48 tonnes of packaging of packaging, of which 35 tonnes, or 73% of the weight, was glass for our spice jars. 10 tonnes was paper, which comprises labels, boxes and packing paper, 3 tonnes was steel for the lids of the spice jars. We could change our profile by switching our packaging to plastic to remove the need for disclosure, but we don’t want to, because (in our opinion) glass is better for spices and the environment versus the more cost-effective alternative. Nudge economics does not always push you to make the best decisions. The cost-effective, financial solution is to switch from glass to plastic, but this is not the right solution for the environment, nor for the resilience of the natural world, nor for social justice because plastic creates long-term waste and supports oil.

I have a big issue with EPR because it costs a lot for us to collate the data, then for consultants to submit the data, and increases the costs of packaging and so our products. And the data has no value or purpose for us, so is only data for governmental statistics. My main issue is that it seems to hit low value items proportionately more than high value items, physical items more than non-physical items, because they’re physical products that have a weight and can be tracked down to this country. And here’s the thing, this impacts necessary goods needed by the poor more than unnecessary things and luxury items that no-one really needs. So, you end out taxing an apple or apple juice proportionately more than an Apple phone. But, as with much in the modern world, it seems to be that the idea is to shift the burden onto the poor disproportionately more than it does onto richer folk, because they cannot move so fast.

Wouldn’t it be simpler and better to tax businesses and rich people more? Now, there’s a thought!

BIODIVERSITY

We recognize that there is a biodiversity emergency. Biodiversity is the variety of all living things on Earth and how they fit together in the web of life, bringing oxygen, water, food, and countless other benefits to humanity. But we’re careless with this precious and beautiful resource, taking it far too much for granted.

Scientific studies indicate that UK is one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries, with on average about half its biodiversity left, far below the global average of 75%. It means the UK is the most depleted of the G7 countries and in the bottom 10% globally for biodiversity. Since 1970, there has been on average an almost 70% decline in the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Most of this is through the way we live – too many chemicals, too much hard engineering and building on unproductive land, so we drain wetlands, fill in waterways and construct weirs and dams where they’re not needed, removing habitats, changing ecosystems and blocking natural migration routes.

As our products are grown, we recognise that they could have a negative impact on biodiversity and that we have a responsibility to minimise our impacts on biodiversity. Ultimately, this means that agriculture must be regenerative and positive for the soil, water and biodiversity, or there will be nothing left to farm in future generations.

Some of this comes through our carbon reduction and water-saving programs, but core to our approach to saving biodiversity is being organic and committed to organic farming and with a focus on vegan products only.

Organic is about working with nature, conserving, and improving the soil, being firmly against GMO and removing all agrochemicals from the growing of our products and keeping processing chemicals out of all our products. We are committed to real food, with no nasties and nothing hidden. Over 80% of our products are organic with the remainder pesticide-free plants or additive-free chemicals, like salt, for example.

We are, also, working within our woodland creation project to return farmland to a more natural environment and to survey the land to give a baseline for biodiversity, so we can plan how best to manage the woodland to make way for nature. While nothing unique or rare has been found, there is a lot of interest for us in our wood: grass snakes, common lizards, toads, frogs, willow warblers and lots of nesting woodland birds, such as woodpeckers, old sessile and pendunculate oaks, old grey willows, which are covered in mosses and lichens, plus several indicators of ancient woodland. Much of the habitat is rhôs pasture which is special to the valleys in South Wales – this is a Molinia-Juncus type habitat, but which has relatively low levels of biodiversity.

In 2025, we looked at the trail cameras that we installed and have seen foxes and roe deer, neither of which we’d seen, as well as grey squirrels and loads of birds, which we had already seen. The result is that we’ve got a decent picture now of what types of animals there are on site and it’s a decent mix of animals – nothing rare, but good activity and it’s a space where nature can get on with what it wants to do without minimal interference.

We completed the quadrat surveys for flora, giving us a decent baseline, so we’ll be able to track how flora changes over the longer term. What really excites us, though, is the data we’ve been getting back on detailed analysis of the soil. It’s full of life – mycorrhiza, loads of bacteria and fungi, actinobacteria, as well as flagellates and nematodes, etc. The fungi have formed extensive mycorrhizal networks and they pop up every so often as fruiting fungi. The key is that the soil is alive, resilient and just as it should be for the soil and conditions that are here. It’s not a dead soilscape.

For us, we see that ultimately the point of reducing impacts on climate, the land and water is to give space for nature and enable nature to recover and that only this will truly address the biodiversity crisis that we all face. We cannot stop biodiversity decline, but we can give a safe place for nature to try and recover.

WOODLAND CREATION PLAN

We are a very small business, with a small impact on the environment, but we recognize that we have a responsibility in how we run our business both to minimize our impacts on the earth and to provide our customers with the best product in terms of sustainability that they can find. Also, we realize that simply managing the business in an environmentally better, corporate way is not enough for us. So, we have grappled with what more we can do positively to impact the environment.

Our chosen route is to create a new woodland here in the UK. This is a very personal choice and there are many different answers to the problem, but we all must decide – whether, or not, it will be proven correct in the future – because to do nothing is not an option.

For us, a new wood answers how we can go beyond reducing our environmental impacts and reduce our dependence on offsets. It addresses carbon costs, air pollution, water pollution, flooding, biodiversity loss and land use changes.

The wood is being created on over 50 acres of former farmland in Carmarthenshire. About half of this has been planted with new trees, almost 30,000 new trees, which will sequester about 12,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the 100-year lifetime of the project. In addition, it reverses historic land use changes by reverting pasture for dairy and sheep to woodland, and it keeps coal in the ground as these trees are above coal reserves – the ground literally leaks coal from the soil.

In 2025, we planted 200 trees (aspen, alder buckthorn, purging buckthorn, crabapple, dogwood, wych elm, gean, guelder rose, black poplar and goat willow). All trees are British grown, native trees from certified chains of custody. That’s another 200 or so tonnes of theoretical carbon that will be soaked up over their lifecycles and an improvement in the species mix. Since we bought the wood, we’ve planted almost 2,000 additional new trees to replace those trees that have not taken and to improve the species mix, a process called ‘beating up’.

Importantly, as with our commitment to climate, we are using a science-based approach. This is a slow, painstaking and expensive process. We are building a picture of the scientific data literally from the ground up, beginning with soil surveys, water surveys and weather data to give a baseline of the physical and chemical inputs to the landscape. This is ongoing but is proving a very helpful process. At the same time, we have had surveys carried out of the habitat, as well as surveys of the trees, bryophytes, fungi and fauna, and completed detailed benchmarking of the flora and hedgerows in 2025. These inputs are providing a baseline that will enable us to ensure that the planting will be best for biodiversity and provide other environmental services, e.g., water quality and carbon sequestration services. It is important that these processes and our decisions are underpinned by scientific data. And the detailed scientific baseline will be invaluable in 100+ years for our grandchildren to see how things have changed through time and how positive impacts have been achieved.

In terms of water services, the soil is wet and there are five streams that cut across the wood. The trees and plants create a rougher land surface, and the roots interfere with water movement across the surface, so reducing flood risk in the neighbouring valley and town. Also, the plants’ leaves clean the air, and their roots filter the water, reducing local air and water pollution.

To generate scientific data on water, we have 2 dipwells in the north and south of the woodland. These Solinst dataloggers record the water level and temperature every hour. This is enabling us to understand how water moves within the soil. It’s a bit early to unpack what the data is showing us, but we are seeing that the ground is sodden for more of the year than it is dry, so the question that we’re trying to understand is whether the wood can become a bog, with the potential to lay down new peat and so sequester carbon this way. In 2025, we began monitoring water levels in one of the becks to see how quickly water from rainfall becomes water flowing in the streams and into the valley below.

In terms of nature and how it will address biodiversity loss is more complex, but we are patiently working on it by collecting data and thinking about it. In general, the target is to preserve the existing temperate rainforest sections and to extend it into the newer planted areas.

The woodland, itself, comprises older trees in shelterbelts, lone trees, hedges, and areas where the hedges have expanded into the fields. The older trees are a mix of native trees, ranging in age 30 – 200 years old, and include alder, birch, blackthorn, cherry, crabapple, hawthorn, hazel, holly, oak, poplar, rowan, sycamore, and willow. The newer trees are a mix of native trees, about 10 years old now, that includes alder, buckthorn, willow (crack, goat and grey willow), downy and silver birch, elder, field maple, hazel, rowan, and pendunculate and sessile oak, spindle, and wild service. We have, also, set aside 3 acres (6%) to be a meadow and are looking at whether we should create a ride beneath some electricity cables, because this cannot become woodland for practical reasons.

Our basic concept behind the planting is several stages: initial – planting out the fields with a core matrix of larger native trees; medium term – interspersing the core with clusters of, and individual, larger native trees to provide greater variety in terms of species and DNA and which are being planted at time intervals to widen the age profile of the newly planted areas; medium term – planting smaller trees and shrubs to deepen the range of native plants for the edge areas and to facilitate the development of an understorey; medium term – planting native woodland ground level flowers in clusters to enable a change in the floral diversity at the low levels – currently the flowers are meadow species. We envisage these planting stages to continue until 2031, which is 15 years from the first planting of the core matrix, after which the wood will be left to develop unchecked. Wherever there are plants naturally encroaching, these are being given the space to develop – as nature is best at this sort of thing – and we are finding that downy birch, sessile oak and grey willow are self-seeding very happily, and that blackthorn is extending well from hedgerows.

As regards other plants and animals, we are undertaking biodiversity surveys to develop a baseline. So far, we have done habitat and fauna surveys. There is a lot more work to be done, but ancient woodland indicators like bluebells have been found, polypody ferns, mosses and lichens are growing on the older trees, as well as grass snakes, lizards, toads, frogs, and willow warblers having been seen.

Our targets for 2026 are to plant another 200+ smaller trees and instal another trail camera.

PEOPLE, COMMUNITIES AND GOVERNANCE

Our targets for People, Communities and Governance are:

• To target the personal development of our staff and support local education.
• To maintain a good balance between different types of working and people.
• To continue to support local charities through food donations and cash contributions.
• To plant trees, use local business and provide access across our wood through public footpaths.

Firstly, in terms of our staffing, we changed how we pay from the National Living Wage to that set by the Living Wage Foundation. This change has caused a significant increase in employment costs, but we believe it shows our commitment to better pay whilst continuing to maintain a sustainable business. In terms of staffing, 73% are women (8 people) and 27% are men (3 people), split as 54% full-time (6) and 46% part-time (5 people). We work a single shift, 5 days a week, with only limited flexibility on hours as we operate between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Secondly, we trained all our staff with the necessary professional qualifications and workplace training best to carry out their roles. We will continue to do this to underpin their opportunities for personal growth.

Thirdly, we made voluntary donations of £5,000 to charities that met our concerns, so local food and wildlife voluntary organisations.

Fourthly, we planted 350 trees in 2025, which will provide a beautiful temperate rainforest and increase biodiversity in the Amman Valley.

Finally, in terms of Governance, we remain a privately-owned business, with 50% woman-owned by Sophie Steenberg. There is no intention to change this ownership structure.

CUSTOMERS

Steenbergs packs organic, Fairtrade plant-based ingredients for smaller retailers and individual consumers which are mostly sold direct.

Our commitment to our customers is to continue with this high level of quality through great tasting products in practicable packaging through maintaining third-party audits of what we do.

So, amongst other systems, Steenbergs’ products continue to be audited by and certified by:

• Organic Food Federation for compliance with organic standards – annual audits.
• FLO-Cert for compliance with Fairtrade standards – audit undertaken in 2025 and certified till 2032.
• KLBD for compliance with kosher standards – annual audits.
• The Vegan Society for extracts and flower waters – annual audits.
• Tarian Inspection for environmental practices under BS855:2016 – annual audits.
• BCorp audit completed in 2025 and successfully recertified.

Whilst we’re not audited to SMETA standards, we provide all requested data under the SEDEX system for corporate and social responsibility. We’ve been members of, and provided data, to that platform for over 5 years.

FINAL WORDS

The aims of Sophie and Axel Steenberg are to have a small but profitable business that is fair to people and good for the planet. We hit our first set of 10-year targets (2016 – 2025) and have set new targets for the period to 2030, mainly to remove carbon costs from transport. BCorp forms a crucial part of the validation of our commitments to be a decent business, sitting alongside our other certifications, particularly organic and Fairtrade. They may not be gold-plated, but they are at a decent (if not high) level for a small business like ours.

Our key driver is that we believe it’s up to people to change the way we value and appreciate the world around us, in particular understanding that what’s good for the environment is good for social justice. It’s up to us to change what we do and, in our own small ways, make those changes that help the natural world, because it’s our world as well. Governments and legislation will never achieve this, because they’re a fundamental part of the problem, so it can only be people who change the way they see the world and rebuild it for them, rather than big business and governments, who are hand in glove in a broken economic system.

We can only do this with continued commitment from our customers to appreciate what we are trying to do rather than constantly to bear down on costs, and this remains a big challenge for small businesses like ours.

We hope that we can maintain this approach and that our customers and staff will continue to be involved and interested in our progress to becoming an even better business over the next few years. Finally, we would like to thank everyone at Steenbergs and our suppliers and customers for your support and understanding of what Sophie and Axel are trying to achieve at Steenbergs.